Poetry Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Poetry Paper - Essay Example If there was rain, or storm, or hunger, the other day or maybe tomorrow, the bird trudges on, unmindful of the pain and sorrows that could have weighed people down. So it was with life, Cohen used the birdsong to remind his readers that everyday is an experience, the past is gone and the future is still inconsequential. This very moment is what is important and perhaps this point of view is the author’s version of the best way to live a life. With the birds, Cohen also introduced the concept of freedom, which he would further explain in his words about the dove later on. The bird is free from any baggage and so it can proceed on singing regardless of what has transpired before. It is, indeed, a powerful concept to emphasize the simplicity of life if one only takes the right kind of perspective. This introduction excellently laid the foundation for the more complex themes that would be explored by the author. In reality, for Cohen, â€Å"the dove is never free†. If it is , presently, â€Å"she will be caught again bought and sold and bought again†. Is it then a tragedy? The thought is heart-wrenching especially when one remembers those who have fallen just so the dove can fly. Emotions ran high here. The dove is an endearing symbol that evokes some sense from people to protect it. If one â€Å"listens† more carefully, Cohen seemed to hint another meaning or concept that the dove should represent – bondage. It is the dove’s fate to be chained as much as it represents war itself. Put in another way, wars would not have occurred if there was no dove in the first place. These thoughts would assault your mind as you read the lines about the bird being sold and bought like it was the most natural thing in the world. It is frustrating that wars will be fought again and again, promising a tiring battle that could break the human spirit. Fortunately, the message is not all about this sad narrative at all. As with the very first pa ssage, this part was used to emphasize a more important message. Immediately following this dark passage is a line that talked about the â€Å"crack†. And this was more significant since it paved the way for the main theme of the poem – survival, hope and persistence of the human spirit. It is interesting that they could all be excellently depicted by the word â€Å"crack†: There is a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in. Cohen also managed to infuse religious theme in two lines and they were added as if like an afterthought or a respite after some hard labor: Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering Its proximity to the â€Å"hope† and â€Å"war† themes, they also represented a transition towards the lines about the government. The religious theme, however, is stronger. With the two lines, Cohen asked for some form of awareness: Which of the bells no longer ring? Which are those that still can? And what is the perfect offering? These questions that the readers would eventually ask have some important implications. First, there is something not right with many religions or what they expect from their flock. We want to be saved but then Cohen is suggesting that many ways posited by the churches could be flawed and so we must ring those that still can and offer something different, one that though may not be perfect must be suitable. It

The Impact of Media on Teens Essay Example for Free

The Impact of Media on Teens Essay Many adolescent teens are exposed to numerous encounters with the media that have a negative impact on their judgments, actions, and opinions. This is referring to the video games, movies, television shows, and magazines that surround them everyday. We begin to discover how it effects their decisions and behaviors. Adolescence is a time when young people are identifying important aspects of socialization like employment, gender rolls, and the development of morals, values, and beliefs. However, it is also a time when family influence and ties become weaker and outside presences become stronger and more important in the lives of the young. Appearance Most teens search for guidance, not from their parents but from a celebrity, pop star, or actor. These people may only be a role model for a short period of time simply because the teenager has a slight interest in they’re work or could even be as capricious as they released a new album that month. Some examples are make-up ads, â€Å"hot or not† articles, and even some television programs such as the Bachelorette create this false image of perfection that teenagers aspire to be like. This specifically targets their expectations, priorities and self-esteem. Teen girls initiate this mindset where they overanalyze every situation. The way they dress, the amount of makeup they put on, and even how they judge the appearance of the people around them including their friends. In a recent interview with Notre Dame Secondary School’s Child Youth Worker, Mrs. Kennedy states, â€Å"they strive to be what they see in magazines and on the news. It really begins to hurt and damage their self esteem† (Kennedy). With so many years of experience with the youth, Mrs. Kennedy’s very capable of describing how teenagers feel through various situations and why. She talks with teens everyday that go through self-esteem and family issues and agrees that the media, â€Å"especially the social media† (Kennedy), greatly affects the way teenagers view and judge  themselves. â€Å"Some movie ads can be very offensive to not only women but also men. Most stereotypes also developed from movies and television shows.† (Williams) Teenagers may not be physically forced to hide who they truly are but are frightened enough to choose to mask themselves. When high school student Matthew Smith was asked his opinion on the growing population of homosexual teens, he stated, â€Å"everyone now is more accepting to your sexuality than they would have been say 10..15 years ago. Media has really helped it along.† (Smith) Two other high school students had similar beliefs when it came to the openness teenagers are being given with their sexual preferences. This is one example of a positive influence the media has on the way teenagers can express themselves. They encourage teens to be â€Å"comfortable in their own skins† and to not be ashamed of their natural instincts. Some illustrations are the television show 1 Girl 5 Gays, the Gay Pride Parade, and even the numerous Gay/Lesbian support groups funded by some celebrities. Both teenage boys and girls are less ashamed of who they choose to have an interest in, in today’s society. In the latest survey conducted by Ashley Sanchez, 54% agreed that teenagers could be open with their sexuality. (Figure 1) Even if 46% disagreed, the good outweighs the bad. Over time, teens are becoming more and more focused on the useless things instead of the bigger picture. Their priorities have changed drastically. Media advertisements emphasize that in order to be considered what we classify as â€Å"cool† or â€Å"hip† we must own the latest gear or wear the newest line of clothing. In addition to this, many teens only follow what is socially acceptable. If it is not in the latest teen magazine it’s considered â€Å"totally last year† and will be shunned if worn. In a recent survey 44% agreed, and 24% strongly agreed that beauty and appearance is very important (Figure 2). This means more than half of the tabulated results find their appearance to be very important. This is a shocking result because it shows roughly how many teenagers really do care about the way they look. There are positive and negative affects that the media has on the teenage mind concerning their appearance and the way they see and portray  themselves. However, one must take into consideration that these statistics may increase in time because of the different ways one can access and is exposed to the media. Personality, Morals and Behaviour The way a teenager behaves weighs heavily on those who surround and nurture them throughout their childhood years. (Picard). Nonetheless, studies show that during adolescence the mind goes through drastic changes. The frontal lobe in the brain has not yet developed and this is essential for decision making and reasoning. That is one rationale as to why teenagers can be described as reckless and daft at times. A teenage mind is extremely vulnerable to outside influences. When they see their favorite actor or singer do something that is inappropriate they think it becomes acceptable. Approximately one million teens get pregnant and give birth every year in the United States. Eighty percent of those births are to unmarried teens. Teenage pregnancy has serious consequences for the mother, the child and society in general. Teenage pregnancy frequently leads to limited future prospects for many teen mothers who are unable to complete high school. Adolescents who have babies are also more prone to health problems and experience a maternal death rate 2.5 times higher than women aged 20-24(ProQuest Staff). For example, the shows 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom are two television demonstrations of underage pregnancy. None of these teen moms are married, and half of their children’s biological fathers want little or nothing to do with them. This taints both teenage girls and boys’ minds with deceitful and inaccurate interpretations of sex and love. Shows like these pollute the idea of raising a child and marriage with an easy way to fame. (Jennings) It changes teenage morals to the impression that since it’s on the television that it is okay to imitate their behavior. Not all teens are as naà ¯ve as to go and engage in sexual behavior just to be famous but the fact that these teenage mothers allow a recording crew to follow them around and film their day-to-day lives and constant arguments with their boyfriends is ludicrous and sends a terrible message to other teenage women. When students were asked if reality television could be educational, the results showed more than half of the students agreed that it could be  educational. (Figure 3) â€Å"I really don’t umde rstand how it could be educational. I think it’s more for entertainment purposes† (Kennedy). Many children born to teenage mothers suffer from low birth weight and other related health problems, with a large proportion of them having insufficient health insurance. Children of teen parents often receive inadequate care because teens are rarely able to provide the nurturing and stimulation required by infants for normal development. Although teen pregnancy rates declined throughout the 1990s, a 3 percent jump in births to teen mothers between 2005 and 2006 raised alarm that sex education programs and campaigns to reduce teen motherhood were failing. â€Å"Teens don’t understand what it means to be truly mature, or respecting themselves as a human, not an object†. (Mellor). Some people think that providing teenagers with contraceptives is the best way to lower teen pregnancy rates, while others think the focus should be on abstinence education (ProQuest Staff). Teenage violence has never really been a big topic of discussion, however one cannot ignore the on-and-off teenage rages that occur. Children all over the world are engrossed in warfare in their little boxed-up world that is their constant companion. Parents think nothing now about their teenage child playing violent video games for hours each day. There is the known positive correlation between habitual violent video game play and mild and severe forms of physical aggression. This study brings out the belief that children in highly individualistic cultures such as in the United States and Canada are more prone to this effect. All children will become more aggressive if repeatedly exposed to violent video games, and younger children are more susceptible to this than older ones. (Hulaimi). Teens in Nintendo mania may have issues with self-control. The part of the brain that video gaming stimulates is the amygdala, the part connected with emotional arousal. What the violent content of the video game does is stimulation of the brains arousal centers, doing little to the cortical areas involved in perception and thinking. (Jayson). Stereotypes are repetitively in the media. Some movies not only humiliates teenagers of specific races but also drives them away from their own culture because they are afraid of being teased or ridiculed. â€Å"If youre of a certain descent, you are portrayed in the media a specific way and most people adjust their personalities to fit those stereotypes.† (Nadesh). Teens begin to lose their true personalities because  they are trying to fit this mold of what the media deems is socially acceptable. Communication and Relationships Adolescence is a crucial time for friendships, and relationships to develop and become more serious. Websites like Twitter and Facebook have become extremely popular to the teenage population. It affects the way they communicate with one another. â€Å"Before, if two people wanted to talk to one another they would usually do it face to face or on the phone. But overtime, weve become so used to just chatting with people online or texting them that not only has it changed the way we communicate but also the kinds of relationships we have with certain people.† (Nadesh). A lot of teens feel driven by this lust or love concept. â€Å"Teens fall into traps very easily, especially when they truly believe the gestures are genuine† (Mellor). Since a lot of teens have barely experienced a real relationship they have a very vague perspective on love. Nearly 1.5 million high school students across the country experience physical violence at the hands of a dating partner each year, according to a website created by the National Dating Abuse Hotline and the awareness group, Break the Cycle. One in three adolescents have experienced physical, verbal, emotional or sexual abuse from a boyfriend or girlfriend. (Duret). Unlike adults, teens in abusive relationships dont typically live together or see one another much outside of school. Their battleground becomes the telephone and social media. This is where put-downs, name-calling and jealousy manifest in angry phone calls and Facebook posts. (Duret). There have been multiple cases where the teenager’s significant other’s jealousy would be pushed to the extreme and murders will occur. (Duret) The case of Brandon Nicholas Santos, 18, arrested on first-degree murder charges in the death of girlfriend Emilie Sineace, 16. Police said Santos drove to Sineaces suburban Lake Worth house Sept. 14 and sent her a text message to come outside. When she did, he fired six shots at her. Half of them hit her, and Sineace, an Inlet Grove High student and aspiring surgeon, died the next morning. Now Santos, who recently played football at Park Vista High, may spend the rest of his life in prison. Teens often bring up the 2009 case of RB singers Chris Brown and Rihanna. The celebrity couple turned a national spotlight on domestic violence among young adults when Brown was arrested and sentenced to probation for attacking Rihanna (Duret). The couple separated in the aftermath, but recent media reports have them back together. This sends teens a confusing message about domestic violence. It gives them the idea that if you love each other enough, you can work through situations like this. People are asking questions like: Is there such as thing as Facebook Addiction Disorder? The fact of the matter is it’s not so much a disorder, but it is a form of addiction. Mental Health Experts around the world are probing the dark side of social media. â€Å"When people become too comfortable talking behind a computer they end up being uncomfortable talking in face-to-face. Lots of awkward teens out there that don’t know how to keep a conversation going anymore.† (Goorahoo). We are in an era where Internet devices are always on and meeting face-to-face is becoming increasingly rare as people choose to meet screen-to-screen. There are some very valuable things about social media and networking, and there are also some dangers. Historically, the changes have been in musical taste and style of dress. Now it has to do with technology and the use of technology to deal with social relations. (Pilieci). Facebook, (Figure 4) has more than 800 million users accessing it regularly, and roughly 425 million accessing the site using a mobile device. There are 18 million Canadians on Facebookmore than half our population and with that more than 12 million of them visit the site daily. On a per-capita basis, [Figure 4] [Figure 4] Canada has the highest number of Facebook users in the world. The average Canadian has 225 friends on the social network, though recent studies from the University of Waterloo have shown that as many as half of our friends are people we dont even really know. (Pilieci) Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, outlined the results of some recent research, which also points to the darker side of social media. He found that Teens using Facebook have more narcissistic tendencies while young adults who have a strong Facebook presence show more signs of other psychological disorders, including anti-social behaviours. Some psychologists are calling this Facebook Addiction Disorder. This is basically when people are afraid to disconnect from social media services because they think theyre going to missing something important. While older groups may be using it to see pictures of family members or brag about their latest accomplishments, younger generations are using it to gossip. (Pilieci). It’s also a danger because as soon as something is on the Internet it can never be erased. In a way the social media is actually making us sick. It constructs the indication that the unhealthiest relationships are normal, and that spending five hours a day on a network is reasonable. It corrupts the way we socialize and get closer to other people. To a certain extent, teens are allowing themselves to have open profiles with private information that anyone can have access to. They are not only endangering themselves but potentially also their ‘225 facebook friends.’ The Aftermath and Physical Damage Suicide can date back to as early as 500 BCE where in the Greek colony of Ceos, citizens over age 60 years or incapacitated by illness are allowed to commit suicide by drinking state-provided poppy juice or hemlock. Fast-forwarding to1980, in a 17-month period, 28 teenagers took their own lives in Chicagos privileged North Shore suburbs. Researchers reveal statistics that show rising signs of violent discontent among youth from affluent families. (ProQuest). Bullying is a major aspect to teen suicide. (Figure 5). â€Å"Bullying will be a HUGE problem no matter where you’re from. When you’re bullied you feel like there is no way out. You get pushed so far to the edge that you give up and just kill yourself. This is happening more and more often because of our accesses to technology and instant communication.† (Goorahoo). Teens have this tendency to want to feel in power. As soon as they have power, it’s a constant battle to sustain their title. Bullies will torment their victim into such a deep state of depression that they will begin having suicidal thoughts. The exact causes of suicide are complex, with an interplay of psychological, biological, social and environmental factors.  However about 95% of cases spring from mental illnesses such as depression or schizophrenia. (Picard) Many people, especially the young, keep their suffering a secret because they don’t know where or who to turn to. The media renders a lot of help hotlines and prevention programs but how much are they really enforcing it? School is the ideal setting for prevention. School Boards are bombarded with requests to implement health-promotion programs, and suicide-prevention lectures; however, there is little evidence that any of this is very effective. Those who routinely cut-themselves are usually victims of some form of bullying and find that by harming themselves it releases their emotions. Whether they are gay, lesbians, victims of sexual abuse, or just people of a certain culture. Nevertheless, young men are still about five times more likely to die of suicide than young women. (Picard) Media also plays a role in this because of the way men are anticipated to act. They feel the need to persistently have this macho, egotistical persona but what studies now show is that men can be just about as self-conscious as women. Teen boys hide their emotions, feelings and thoughts a lot more than teen girls. Especially when they are with their friends. This is because the media displays the impression of a sensitive man as a homosexual. In most cases, this is not true, of course. All of these bottled up emotions eventually leads to substance and drug abuse. The media blames movies and television shows for this, but those things are the media. Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug in the world, within the United States alone 23 percent of high school students said theyd recently smoked marijuana, making it more popular than cigarettes. (Ritter) Sometimes the habit is developed straight out of the teen’s home or family, but for the most part teen’s smoke simply to have something to do with their friends. (Figure 6) Drinking, on the other hand, mainly has to do with family difficulties. Teens use it as a stress reliever or to forget certain memories. â€Å"Even parent’s drinking occasionally may be influential to their kids without even knowing it.† (Kennedy). Along with all of this comes the increasing number of non-active teenagers. With fast food restaurants frequently being built within a mile radius of most homes it becomes a very convenient place to dine. Teens enjoy going to fast food restaurants for two main reasons: to eat a meal for a cheap price, and to be away from home for a little while. For children of normal weight, the risk of developing high blood pressure or pre high blood pressure rose 6% for every 1,000 milligrams of sodium consumed per day. But the risk rose 74% for children who were overweight. (McKay) Since fast food restaurants are in such convenient places for teenagers to just pop in and eat a burger, they will do it. It’s not only extremely unhealthy because most fast food restaurant’s meat is processed but teens won’t do much physical activity afterwards to work it off. Obese teens not only make easy targets for bullies, in the case of girls, theyre more likely to turn into bullies themselves, according to the findings of a Canadian study on the social fallout of being overweight. (Kirkey) Since a teenager’s priorities have changed, so have their extracurricular activities. Teens are more concerned with shopping and instant messaging one another than maintaining a healthy diet. According to Statistics Canada, 17 per cent of children in Canada are overweight; nine per cent are obese. (Kirkey) Although, there’s maintaining a healthy diet but then there’s going to the extremes with not eating at all. Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa may be caused by environmental factors, which switch on specific genes that trigger the dysfunctional eating behaviour. (Cresswell) Many teens will not allow themselves to eat because of what someone said, or something they saw on the television. This occurs in men also, however men don’t stop eating they go on protein diets. This can also be harmful to their body because your body needs some fat in order to function. Media surrounds teens everywhere they go whether they like to acknowledge it or not. Most teens are becoming more aware of their surroundings and the influences around them by the age of fifteen but do not think much of it until around eighteen. In today’s world people cannot live without media.  Thus, we know that various media and its artifacts can have a lot of effects on our daily lives, our society, and us. We must understand that a lot of what we see on television, hear on the radio, or see in the print are there in order for us to change our minds about certain views or opinions. So, to fully understand and comprehend the nature and effects of the production techniques of the media and its effects on the teenage mind we must consider the many aspects of media. Work Cited Cresswell, Adam. Environmental Factors May Trigger Anorexia. Weekend Australian. 25 Aug 2012: 8. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 14 Dec 2012. Duret, Daphne. High School Dating Violence on the Rise. Palm Beach Post. 14 Nov 2012: A.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 2 Dec 2012. Goorahoo, Khamron. Personal interview. 6 Dec. 2012 Hulaimi, Wan A. The Impact of Violent Video Games on Children. New Straits Times. 22 Apr 2012: 21. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 2 Dec 2012. Jayson, Sharon. Study the Player, Not the Video Game. USA TODAY. 15 Sep 2011: D.3. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 6 Dec 2012. Jennings, Alicia. â€Å"When You Trust Someone and It Threatens Your Body.† Teen Voices. 24 2008. 22-23. Print. Kennedy, Mrs.. Personal interview. 11 Oct. 2012. Kirkey, Sharon. Obese Teen Girls More Likely to Be Bullies, Says Canadian Study. Postmedia News. 21 Jan 2012: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 6 Dec 2012. McKay, Betsy. New Study: Sodium a Concern for Children. Wall Street Journal. 17 Sep 2012: A.2. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 5 Dec 2012. Nadesh, Janani. Email interview. 5 Dec. 2012. Picard, Andre. â€Å"Everyone Has a Role In Being Vigilant About Cries for Help.† Globe and Mail. 28 Sep 2011: A.8 SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 05 Oct 2012. Pilieci, Vito. Do Social Networks Make Us Sick?. Ottawa Citizen. 24 Mar 2012: B.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 6 Dec 2012. ProQuest Staff. At Issue: Teenage Pregnancy. ProQuest LLC. 2012: n.pag. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 2 Dec 2012. ProQuest Staff. Suicide Timeline. Leading Issues Timelines. 2012: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 2 Dec 2012. Ritter, Malcolm. Teen Pot Use Linked to Later Declines in IQ. Baxter Bulletin. 27 Aug 2012: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 1 Dec 2012. Smith, Matthew. Personal interview. 11 Dec. 2012. Williams, Tee-Ara. â€Å"Are These Movie Ads a Big Mistake?† Teen Voices. 08 2004: 56-57. Print.

Drug Addiction In Pakistan Youths

Drug Addiction In Pakistan Youths Drug addiction is a state of periodic or constant intoxication produced by the repeated consumption of a drug. Its characteristics include Uncontrollable desire to continue taking the drugs, a tendency to increase the dose after interval of time, a psychological and physical dependence on drugs, effects of drugs on individual and society. Drug addiction is an abnormal condition which arises due to frequent drug use. The disorder of addiction involves the progression of sensitive drug use to the development of drug-seeking behavior, the openness to decline and the decreased, slowed ability to respond to naturally rewarding stimuli. Drug addiction is basically a chronic disease affecting the brain, heart and other parts of body. Youngster start taking drugs at their teen ages and the first step of addiction to drugs is smoking. Drugs affect different people in different ways. One person can take and abuse drugs, yet never become addicted, while another merely has one experience and is immediately hooked. It can be said that dugs addiction is just a state of mind. Drug addiction is often overshadowed by many of the countrys other human development problems, such as poverty, illiteracy, and lack of awareness and basic health care center. But the fact is that drug addiction is rapidly growing among the youth of Pakistan. Drug addiction is a complex brain disease. It is characterized by compulsive, at time uncontrollable, drug craving, seeking and use that persist even in the face of extremely negative consequences. Drug seeking becomes compulsive, in large part as a result of the effect of prolonged drug use on brain functioning and also on behavior. For many people, drugs addiction becomes chronic, with relapses possible even after long period of abstinence. I chose this topic because I think it is necessary for todays society which is taken over by the curse of drugs, mostly High School and university students are involved in it. It the main reason, today youth is distracted from their ambitions, and due to it today Pakistan, even after 63 years of independence, is 3rd world country. One of the reasons is that some people who want to quit but due to the lack of health care centre, they are unable to quit. Some people also involve in illegal activities to take drugs because they are not financially strong. This study will help us analyze the effects of drug addiction and will help us find better alternatives. Drug addiction is a state in which the body feel relax and comfortable. Drug addiction among youngsters is increasing day by day, which have a very negative effect on our society. Review of Literature This study help us to examine that individual who are addicted to drugs are viewed negatively overall in the society. This research indicate that negative attitude are clear among young generation and it gradually increase with the age, so that the literature review indicate that level and accuracy of knowledge about mental illness increase from childhood through adolescence, negative attitude in youth also raise with the passage of time. On the other hand, adolescence is often accompanied by peer pressure or by other recourses. According to the study, it is also found that current users Marijuana says that it is less dangerous than other drugs. The study show that drug addiction is found in males as well as females and this trend is gradually increasing especially in females, and it is also shown in the study that trend of drugs among adolescent is also increasing in urban and rural schools. Results show that age-stigma association is quite independent of sex and residence. It also shows one of a factor that who are addicted to drugs are due to their close friends or you can say due to bad company. This study shows the reasons and causes by which teenagers are motivated toward drugs. It show that who use drugs on a regular or occasionally are strongly supportive by personal choice due to lack of concentration from their parents and for enjoyment with their friends to eliminate their boredom. The reasons which are not using drugs in this study include lack of interest and fear from drugs and also from their parents and opposite reaction of their elders. The main purpose of this study is to emphasize the significance of parents in this regard. This research show the fact that increasing majority of children reported using drugs because they enjoyed them or they were bored and they want themselves to remain busy in some other alternative activities. The use of illegal drugs in children and teenagers are gradually increasing day by day. Result of this study showed that the main reason by which youth is motivating toward drugs is due to the peer pressure and their friends which were involved in such illegal activities. The other aspect to conduct this research was to finds the reasons that why some children do not use drugs. The first reason was lack of interest in the effects of drugs. Other main reasons included fear of immediate effect of substance, fear of physical and psychological harm and fear of becoming addicted to drugs. The finding and conclusion of this study is to get the reasons behind drug related decision especially in children and teenagers. Both who use drugs and who do not give lot of explanation and reasons. Children who do not use drugs reported that they are not involved in drugs are due to lack of interest in this activity, worries about the cost of getting caught by police or their parents. As we all know the health hazards of smoking. Everyone is familiar from this fact but this curse is rapidly increasing among youngster. The main objective of this study is to investigate the signs of tobacco use, smoking as well as snuffing, at the age when most of the young generation is diverted toward this curse. In this study, it is found that now a day, smoking is becoming very common in girls as well. Sweden has the highest frequency of smoking all over the world. It is found in the study that frequency of snuffing among teenagers has amplified since the early 1970s, whereas the graph of smoking has reduced slightly during last decade. The purpose of this research is to explore teenagers thinking of tobacco use, their shared ideas and images, how these design are reflected in their report about their own and other people tobacco use and also the ways understandings of tobacco use are related to the teenagers development of a gender identity. It is found in the study that smokin g cigarette offered males as well as females a short break from their daily routine and strains of family life. According to teenagers, smoking will ultimately lead to the break-down of the whole body. They also explain that invisible process inside the body, when smoking, will gradually be visible on the outside of the body. This research shows that youngsters think that snuffing has a positive effect as they increase their sports performance. But the fact is something else. Smoking and snuffing is just a mind satisfaction activity, as it affects lung and heart. On the other hand, it also affect externally like u see that the color of lip and teethes and even the color of face of smokers are also changed after a period of time. Some people are attracted to danger, and want to face risk, which is one of the reasons for them to start smoking. In addition, it is examined in the study that tobacco use is basically based on human nature. Smoking is a part of teenage lifestyle, such as b eing together with friends for hangout, parties etc. It is concluded from the analysis that now a days, new generation is well aware from all illegal activities such as, smoking, snuffing, drinking etc. This research paper shows the planned use of prescription drugs of intoxicating properties other than physicians description of specific drugs for intoxicating means or for bona fide medical condition, which is dangerous for human health. Research shows the rapidly increasing rate of abuse of such drug among youth, especially teenager. Such type of abuse of drugs is one of the biggest and main sources of drug addiction. In 2003, approximately 15 million US citizens were involved in using of prescription drugs for its intoxicating quality. For minimizing the rate of prescription drug misuse, government is making strategies to identify the early signs and effective clinical practices to prevent people from getting into it to avoid from massive problems in future. The most abundantly used drug in UK is Alcohol and teenagers use it more than the limit described for health which 21 and 14 units per week for males and female respectively. Those who are new to alcohol must use bellow the limit for the safe side. This study is about the relationship between excessive use of alcohol and its affect on human memory. It is identified from surveys among excessive use and low-dose user that those who use alcohol in excess amount face everyday memory errors than low-dose. Excessive use of alcohol has a direct relation on memory errors and neuropsychological deficits. Alcohol is very harmful for heart, liver and other sensitive parts of human body. The finding of this study is that use of substance is highly common among homeless and street-involved young people. Study confirmed that variables measuring psychological dysfunction and homeless culture predicted alcohol addiction, while institutional disaffiliation and homeless culture predicted drug addiction. Findings affirm distinct patterns of division related to alcohol compared to drug addiction. As homeless, street-involved young people continue to use drugs and alcohol as a strategy to cope with the various detrimental experiences associated with living on the streets, the result is often further societal estrangement. This study also show that engaging in criminal behaviors has been identified as an indicator of disaffiliation, especially among homeless population. Seeking drug-using friends and involvement in social networks that reinforce drug-related choices, attitudes and behaviors increases youths assimilation into homelessness culture. The purpose of this study was to determine whether domains of social estrangement are associated with homeless youths alcohol and drug addiction. Results show that specific domains of social estrangement do predict addiction, while others prevent from this activity. Purpose to conduct this study is to estimate the incidence rate of initiation into drug injection and to identify predictors of initiation into drug injection separately among street girls and boys. This research show that that injected drugs are rapidly increasing day by day in street youth of Northern America and Canada. This situation represents a significant public health issue as young injection drug users are known to be the population at highest risk for HIV and HCV infections. This is the first study to measure incidence rates of initiation into drug injection by gender among youth at risk. Observed incidence rates are similar for boys and girls, results found having no association between gender and having ever injected drugs. In a study of young Canadian offenders, more girls aged 16-19 injected than their male counterparts of the same age. In this study, it is noticeable that girls were more likely to report having started injection using heroin while more boys reported ha ving used cocaine as their first drug of injection. Results show that recent heroin use and recent cocaine use respectively tripled and doubled the risk of initiation for both girls and boys. Objective of this study is to observe social contexts and processes influencing evolution to drug injection among street youth. This study show that some combinations of street life and drug use trajectories seem to contribute to injection among street youth. This study clearly shows the pertinence of examining how drug use practices are influenced by the individuals relations with their social environments. This study is the first qualitative investigation of the social processes that lead street youth to adopt drug injection. One of main finding is that the manner in which drug injection inserts itself into a youths life trajectory varies depending on when youth come into contact with the street, as well as their relations with the street scene and drug use. In this respect, it should be pointed out how diverse the trajectories of street youth are. While it is not possible to state with certainty that a youth will never inject drugs, it appears that certain youth have trajectories that are more prone to injection drug use than others. This study is conducted on street youth on adolescent and young adults who spend their most time living and working on the streets. This socially and economically disadvantaged population is marked by perilous living conditions, including poverty, homelessness, and drug use. In study of homeless youth, the odds of an earlier suicide attempt were nearly four times greater among youth with an active diagnosis of depression, and nearly two times greater among youth who reported symptoms of hopelessness. In addition, depression is associated with high-risk behaviors, such as injection drug use and unprotected sexual intercourse that predispose youth to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. HIV infection is itself a well recognized risk factor for mortality among street youth. We observed a very high frequency of depressive symptoms among street youth, with more than four in 10 street youth reporting CES-D score _22. The greatest number of depressive symptoms was observed among we ekly heroin users, followed by weekly crystal methamphetamine users, then weekly cocaine/crack users, and finally, daily marijuana users. The research paper was on the impact of maternal alcohol and illicit drug use on childrens behavior problem and the objective of this study is to use a large, national sampling of mothers and children to test for evidence of casual relationship between maternal alcohol, marijuana and cocaine use and its effects on childrens health problem. This study provides some evidence that maternal substance use may be linked causally to childrens behavior problems. Although TSLS results are challenging due to the poor performance of the identifying instruments, OLS models, family fixed-effects models, and mother-child fixed-effects models all suggest that maternal marijuana and cocaine use are associated with increases in 4-15-year-old childrens BPI scores. Maternal alcohol use, as measured by the number of days the mother used alcohol in the past month, appears to affect behavior problems. This result is sensitive, however, to the addition of maternal depression and smoking measures. Moreover, the magnitude of this effect is very small, and maternal indulge drinking had no constant impact on childrens behavior problem. This study is about the depression and participation of youth in selling and use of illicit drugs. The argument starts with the theory that drug selling and drug use augment each other, both at the individual level and at the aggregate level. For example, someone who sells drugs has relatively cheap access to drugs. And, someone who uses drugs may sell to help finance his/her use. The conceptual framework postulates that a recession would have direct positive effects on the prevalence of youth drug selling but ambiguous direct effects on youth drug use. The conceptual framework also postulates that drug selling and drug use are inter-connected at the individual level and the cumulative level. Thus, any effect of a recession on one would likely affect the other in the same direction. The limited empirical evidence indicates that both drug selling and drug use among youth is higher when the economy is weaker. The current economic crisis will likely increase both youth drug selling and drug use relative to what they would have otherwise been. As we all are familiar that humans are routinely exposed to a vast array of environmental neurotoxicants, including pesticides, endocrine disrupters, and heavy metals. The long term consequences of exposure have become a major human health concern as research has indicated strong associations between neurotoxicants and a variety of dopamine-related neurological disorders. This study was conducted to know the effects of environmental neurotoxicants on the dopaminergic system and the possible role in drug addiction. A large variety of studies have demonstrated that a vast assortment of environmental neurotoxicants have deleterious effects on the dopaminergic system, consequently enhancing or impairing DA neurotransmission and disrupting DA-associated behaviors including motor control, motivation and attention, and potentially, vulnerability to drug addiction. Pesticides and insecticides, such as dihedron, parquet, and rotenone, tend to decrease DA activity and can lead to diseases such as PD, which are characterized by dopaminergic neurodegeneration. Studies appear to express a link between environmental neurotoxicity exposure and drug addiction although much work needs to be done to further identify and characterize the underlying mechanism involved. Bupropion is an effective medication in smoking cessation and has a good safety and side effect profile. The effects of bupropion on extracellular dopamine levels in the striatum were investigated using raclopride positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in rats administered saline, bupropion and in healthy human volunteers administered. A cognitive task was used to stimulate dopamine release in the human study. In rats, bupropion significantly decreased raclopride specific binding in the striatum, consistent with increases in extracellular dopamine concentrations. In man, no significant decreases in striatal raclopride specific binding were observed. Levels of dopamine transporter occupancy in the rat at bupropion were higher than predicted to occur in man at the dose used. Thus, these data indicate that, at the low levels of dopamine transporter occupancy achieved in man at clinical doses, bupropion does not increase extracellular dopamine levels. These findings have important im plications for understanding the mechanism of action underlying bupropions therapeutic efficacy and for the development of novel treatments for addiction and depression. For a long period of time, China implemented restraining drug policies to cope with drug-related problems but on the other hand, the situation of drug addiction has rapidly worsened since the early 1990s. For example, the number of registered illicit drug users in the country increased from approximately 70,000 in 1990 to 1.16 million by the end of 2005. This paper is projected to intricate on the general principles of Chinas latest Drug Control Law from the point of view of scholars who are involved in the field of drug addiction research and treatment in China. This paper also discussed the challenges we are currently facing, based on the observations and practical experiences the authors have obtained in China. It is hoped that by addressing these issues, we will be able to implement the new Drug Control Law more successfully and ensure that we deal more effectively with drug addiction in China. Methodology: This drug addiction survey is based on questionnaire from age (12 to 19) years, which is derived from 2005 cycle of Ontario student drug use survey. This research is conducted through questionnaire as mentioned above and the items of questionnaire are (1) Would you be afraid to talk or interact someone who is addicted to drugs. (2) Would you make friend someone who is addicted to drugs? (3) Would you feel embarrassed or ashamed if your friend knew that someone in your family was addicted to drugs? In this research, Ordinary least square regression is used to oversee and examine the relationship between age, sex, urban city, individuals and peer groups. Quadratic and linear age terms are included in this model. In this methodology, age variables were centered in order to reduce the correlation between the linear and quadratic term and interaction term. The data on which this study is based was collected under large study of pre-teenagers and schoolchildrens attitude and behavior toward illegal drugs and their experience. This research had both quantitative and qualitative components Data is basically collected by the survey which depends on questionnaire. Data is also gathered by interviews of individual to understand the thoughts and perception about drugs in children. Basically, the sample of this study is school in Glasgow and Newcastle. The quantitative element consisted of a survey of 2382 between ten to twelve year old children in 47 schools of Glasgow. To capture teenagers concepts of tobacco use, a qualitative approach with focused group interview was conducted for this research. Group discussion is the most useful and helpful way of sampling. The sample on which the research is conducted with 43 ninth grade students having age between 14 to 15 years old at two schools in inner Stockholm. Interviews are based on eight themes those are; (1) health and tobacco use, (2) the age limit of tobacco purchase, (3) school and tobacco use, (4) media and tobacco use, (5) the aesthetics of tobacco use (6) the pointless tobacco use, (7) presentation of self, peers and adults as tobacco-users, (8) presentation of self and peers who do not use tobacco. The majority of the 25 non-tobacco-users had tried smoking earlier, 12 boys and one girl had tried snuffing. Among the 18 tobacco users more girls than boys use tobacco on a daily basis. This research is conducted with the help of scientific questions. In this study, group discussion and interview are also conducted to read the state of minds of drug user that how these drugs affect their health and brain. Scientific questions highlights the need for research into the effects of prescription drugs on the developing brain, using both vitro and vivo models. Sample of this research is teenagers of United States. In this study, existing -groups design was adopted to compare existing groups of excessive alcohol users and low dose user. The sample on which this research is conducted is the students of colleges and universities of North-East of England and each participant was tested individually at their respective college and university. Forty-five participants were identified as excessive alcohol users having 28 females, 17 males, mean age of the participants is 17 years. Sixty-three were identified as low-dose/no-alcohol users having 41 females, 22 males and mean age is 16 years. Alcohol and other drug use were assessed using Recreational Drug Use Questionnaire. Prospective memory Questionnaire (PMQ) was administered first, followed by the drug-use questionnaire and the whole testing time per participant was approximately 25 minutes. Sample selected to conduct this research is three U.S. cities are Los Angeles, CA; Austin, TX and St. Louis, MO. Participate in the study, had to be 18-24 years old, have spent at least 2 weeks away from home in the month before the interview, and provide written informed consent. The dependent variable for the current study reflected alcohol or drug addiction as measured by the Mini International Neuropsychiatry Interview. Addiction to alcohol and various substances was measured by participant responses to a series of yes/no questions that identified those meeting criteria for abuse or dependence. Analyses were performed using SPSS, version 16 with statistical significance. In this study, chi-square, t-test and regression model is also used as a methodology. Data were collected using semi-annual interviewer-administered questionnaires. Variables from the following domains were considered in Cox regression models: socio-demographic characteristics, early and current substance abuse, marginalization, childhood traumatic sexual events and injection exposure. The sample on which this research is conducted is some specific areas of North America, Canada, Baltimore and Thailand. In this 95% confidence intervals were based on the Poisson distribution. Unvaried and multivariate Cox regression models with time-varying covariates were used to examine predictors of initiation into drug injection. The sample for this study is 42 street youth who participated in in-depth interviews. A typology of experiences was built founded on youths street life and drug use trajectories. The transition to drug injection was examined through these experiences. This research is conducted by a qualitative study grounded in symbolic interactions, a theoretical perspective through which, to understand the evolution of human behaviors, subjects are considered as creative social actors in their world. The study sample was composed of 42 street youth aged 15-25 years. 16 participants were girls, and 26 were boys. At the time of the interview, 17 of them had never injected drugs. Of the remaining 25 who had injected drugs, 8 had tried injection without pursuing it further, 8 had stopped after having injected regularly, and 9 were actively injecting, 1 of whom had been doing so for less than a year. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted in this research plan. This study was conducted between October 2005 and November 2007, data were collected from a cohort of street recruited youth aged 14-26 residing in Vancouver, Canada, for the At-Risk Youth Study. Active drug users were classified by predominant substance of use: daily marijuana use, weekly cocaine/crack use, weekly crystal methamphetamine use, or weekly heroin use. Adjusted mean number of depressive symptoms (measured by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression [CES-D] scale) was compared among the four groups using multiple linear regressions. Logistic regression was also used to assess adjusted odds of CES-D score _22. In this research paper, the child mental health production function is represented empirically by Equation. BP Iijt = ÃŽ ±0 + ÃŽ ±1Ajt + ÃŽ ±2Xit + ÃŽ ±3Xjt + ÃŽ ±4ui + ÃŽ ±5uj + ÃŽ µijt. The other equation for maternal demand for substances like alochal is: Ajt = ÃŽ ²0 + ÃŽ ²1Pt + ÃŽ ²2Yjt + ÃŽ ²3uj + ωjt. Bupropion administration was calculated as: Occupancy  ¼ SBRvehicle−SBRbupropion h I =SBRvehicle 100 Ten healthy participants were recruited by public advertisement (80% male; 90% right handed; average age: 47 ±6.7 years; age range 37-58 years). Nine of the 10 subjects were nonsmokers; the single participant who smoked consumed ∠¼10 cigarettes/day. None of the participants were currently taking any prescribed medication. All participants gave their written, informed consent to be included in the study.

The Work of Leonardo da Vinci Essays -- essays research papers

Grasping the full understanding of science and perfection in creative art are the two ultimate goals that mankind had been striving for ever since these two aspects became an important part of society. Many had aimed for it but none succeeded. Most of those who attempted to obtain this Holy Grail failed but some were able to conquer many fields. Leonardo da Vinci is a perfect example of those â€Å"Universal Geniuses.† Leonardo was one of the few who achieved major success in both art and sciences including portrait painting, conceptual engineering, anatomy, and many more. Leonardo was born in 1452 in the village of Vinci near Florence, Italy. With him being born into a family of highly respected lawyers, it is said that Leonardo inherited his intelligence from his father, Ser Pierro da Vinci. Despite the family traditions, Leonardo grew up to be an apprentice of an artist named Andrea del Verrocchio. It was here that the young man developed his talent and soon surpassed his own mentor. He created new styles of painting that were so revolutionary that there was a rumor whic...

Day After Tomorrow

FTER Hollywood cinema and climate change: The Day After Tomorrow. Ingram, David. In Words on Water: Literary and Cultural Representations, Devine, Maureen and Christa Grewe-Volpp (eds. ) (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2008). Climate change, like many other environmental problems, is slow to develop, not amenable to simple or fast solutions, and caused by factors that are both invisible and complex (Adam 17).Making a narrative film about climate change therefore does not fit easily into the commercial formulae of mainstream Hollywood, which favour human-interest stories in which individual protagonists undergo a moral transformation before they resolve their problems through heroic action in the final act. Can such classical narratives mediate an issue as complex as climate change without being not only inadequate, but even dangerous, lulling their audience into a false sense of security about our ability to deal with such problems?Ecocritic Richard Kerridge observes that a British journalist responded to the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 by framing it within the familiar narrative of the Second World War, with its emphasis on ‘a successful outcome and a narrative closure'. For Kerridge, such narrative strategies may be an overly reassuring way of representing environmental threats, and reveal therefore that the ‘real, material ecological crisis' is ‘also a cultural crisis, a crisis of representation' (Kerridge 4).Yet, as Jim Collins argues, ‘mass-mediated cultures', including those of popular Hollywood cinema, are characterised by ‘semiotic complexities of meaning production', which leave even popular, generic texts open to multiple interpretations (Collins 17). Film theorist Stephen Prince describes a Hollywood movie as a ‘polysemous, multivalent set of images, characters, and narrative situations', which therefore constitute what he calls an ‘ideological agglomeration', rather than a single, coherent ideological position (Prince 40).This polysemy may arise from the Hollywood industry's commercial intention to maximize profits by appealing to as wide and diverse an audience as possible by making movies which, ideologically speaking, seek to have it all ways at once. One consequence is that, when we theorize about the effects popular movies may or may not have on public awareness of environmental issues, those effects are more complex, and less deterministic, than is often assumed is some academic film theories.This essay will explore the range of meanings generated by The Day After Tomorrow (2004), which frames the issue of anthropogenic climate change within the familiar genres of the disaster and science fiction movie. Ideological analysis of the film, combined with a study of its audience reception, suggests that even a classical Hollywood narrative can generate a degree of ideological ambiguity which makes it open to various interpretations, both liberal and conservative. Th e ideological ambiguity of The Day After Tomorrow derives in part from the way its narrative mixes the modes of realism, fantasy and melodrama.A realist film will attempt to correspond to what we understand as reality, mainly through the optical realism of its mise-en-scene and the sense of psychological plausibility produced by both its script and the performance of its actors. Melodrama, on the other hand, will simplify character and heighten action and emotion beyond the everyday. Hollywood movies tend to work by moving between these two modes of representation. Some genres, such as science fiction and horror, also move between realism and fantasy, a mode which exceeds realist plausibility by creating a totally fictive and impossible diegetic world.As a science fiction movie, then, The Day After Tomorrow deliberately blurs the distinction between realism and fantasy. The narrative begins from a scientifically plausible premise: the melting of the Artic ice-cap, caused by anthropo genic global warming, cools the North Atlantic Current, colloquially known as the ‘Gulf Stream', and thereby affects the weather in the Northern hemisphere. The movie then extrapolates from this premise beyond even the worst-case scenarios proposed by climate scientists.The switching off of the thermohaline current generates a global superstorm, as a result of which an ice sheet covers Scotland and a tsunami floods Manhattan. The movie's literary source, it is worth noting, was The Coming Global Superstorm (1999), by Art Bell and Whitely Streiber, whose television talk show on the paranormal suggests an interest in the ‘parascientific'; that is, in speculation beyond what is provable or falsifiable by scientific method. When interpreted literally, that is, as realism, The Day After Tomorrow clearly violates notions of scientific plausibility.The basic climatology in the movie is inaccurate: hurricanes can only form over large bodies of warm water, not the cold seas found in high latitudes, where polar lows are the main storm systems. The movie also distorts the science of climate change, mainly by accelerating the time frame within which its effects take place, and by making them much worse than predicted. Any slowdown in the thermohaline current would take a period of years, at least, and probably centuries, rather than the days featured in the film.Moreover, even if the North Atlantic Current did switch off, average temperatures would still be likely to rise, rather than fall, because of the greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere (Henson 112-5). The film's central narrative, in which government paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) walks in sub-zero temperatures all the way from north of Philadelphia to the New York Public Library, to rescue his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhall) who is sheltering there, is thus impossible: neither would survive such low temperatures.For helicopters to freeze in mid-air, temperatures would not only be too cold for snow, but also too cold for human survival. Burning books in a library would be insufficient to keep people alive. Such implausibilities are worth pointing out, not because cinema audiences necessarily take what they see as scientific truth, but because science fiction often provides an opportunity to learn some real science. Indeed, as we will see later in this essay, environmental groups used the release of the movie as a ‘teachable moment' on the science of climate change (Leiserowitz 6).The two-disc DVD edition of the movie includes a documentary on the science of climate change; screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff commented on its release that, although ‘our primary concern' in making the film ‘was entertainment rather than education. On the DVD, there's room for both'. Acknowledging that the time frame he created for the movie was accelerated for fictional purposes, and that the ‘superfreeze' was ‘purely a cinematic device', he added that ‘t he political, agricultural and societal consequences of a sudden change in the ocean currents would still be catastrophic' (Nachmanoff 1).To dismiss The Day After Tomorrow purely for its scientific inaccuracies, then, clearly misses the point of the movie, which is to use realist elements of climate science as a starting point for melodrama and fantasy, so that it can dwell on the spectacle of extreme weather, appropriate for a blockbuster disaster movie, and also invite the audience's emotional engagement with the human-interest story that becomes the main focus of narrative. It is to these elements in the film that we will now turn.As a ‘natural disaster' melodrama, the film works on an opposition between nature and civilization, and invites an ambiguous identification on the part of the viewer: in Hollywood terms, we are invited to ‘root for' both nature and civilization at various points in the narrative, although the values of civilization eventually become the domi nant ones. Before that happens, however, the scenes of extreme weather make the experience of environmental apocalypse strangely attractive. As Maurice Yacowar observes, the natural disaster movie ‘dramatizes people's helplessness against the forces of nature' (Yacowar 218).The set pieces of extreme weather in The Day After Tomorrow reveal the sublime power of wild nature: violent, chaotic, powerful beyond human control, and therefore exciting and seductive. Environmentalist Paul Hawken writes that the concept of doomsday ‘has always had a perverse appeal, waking us from our humdrum existence to the allure of a future harrowing drama' (Hawken 204). As Stephen Keane points out, although disaster movies regularly feature television news reports commenting on the events that are taking place, they do not go on ‘to make the critical point that we are all electronic voyeurs' (Keane 84).The Day After Tomorrow follows this pattern. The audience's complicity in seeking cin ematic thrills in the scenarios of mass death and destruction caused by the weather is encouraged, rather than questioned, by the movie itself. Indeed, such thrills are the raison d'etre of its genre. Yet the aesthetics of the sublime have always been based on vicariousness; if we take pleasure in the destructive forces of nature, it is from the safe distance of our movie seats, where we are in the position of voyeurs, rather than of victims.This construction of victimhood in the disaster movie depends on narrative alignment: when people die, we do not dwell on them, nor on the bereaved people they leave behind. Typical of the disaster genre, the focus of nature's destructiveness in The Day After Tomorrow is the city. Hollywood disaster movies, writes Geoff King, share with millennial groups ‘a certain delirious investment in the destruction of the metropolis' (King 158). When a series of tornadoes attack Los Angeles, the mise-en-scene focuses on familiar landmarks: the Hollyw ood sign, the Capitol Records building, and a billboard advertising the model Angelyne.Screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff observes on the DVD commentary that preview audiences greeted the moment where the Angelyne sign flattens the television reporter with cheers and applause (Emmerich). The sense of retribution is difficult to avoid: perhaps there is poetic justice in the media figure, parasitical on other people's suffering, finding his nemesis in Angelyne, the model and aspiring actress who paid to advertise herself on her own billboards, and thus became for some emblematic of the meretricious values of the city.As Mike Davis observes, Los Angeles is often given special treatment in apocalyptic narratives. ‘No other city,' he writes, ‘seems to excite such dark rapture'. Unlike other cities, the destruction of Los Angeles ‘is often depicted as, or at least secretly experienced as, a victory for civilization' (Davis 277). Geoff King draws upon Mikhail Bakhtin's notio n of the ‘carnivalesque' to account for such moments of ‘licensed enjoyment of destruction', based on an ‘overturning of cultural norms' (King 162). But the destruction is too cruel, as well as unfocussed and generalised, to be simply an anti-authoritarian gesture.As Susan Sontag noted, science fiction films provide a ‘morally acceptable fantasy where one can give outlet to cruel or at least amoral feelings' (Sontag 215). Freud's notion of the ‘death wish' thus better captures the dark side of such fantasies. For Freud, such aggressions were natural drives that need to be controlled; art provides catharsis for such anti-social instincts. Patricia Mellencamp draws on Freud to argue that American television is both ‘shock and therapy; it both produces and discharges anxiety' (Mellencamp 246).The disaster movie works in a similar way, mobilising and exploiting our negative drives and emotions. But are there unconscious meanings specific to the natura l disaster movie? One reading of such movies is as ‘revenge of nature' narratives, which enact a fantasy of nature getting its own back for its mistreatment at the hands of human beings. Psychoanalyst Karl Figlio draws on the theories of Melanie Klein to argue that scientific thinking itself is an act of repressive violence towards Nature. ‘Nature killed,' he writes, ‘is nature in a vengeful mood, a primitive retaliatory phantasy that fuels apocalyptic forebodings.The more scientific the culture, the more it is at the mercy of irrational fears, and the more it is dependent on scientific protection from them' (Figlio 72). He cites Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as an ‘extreme example of scientific mapping that calls forth revenge from nature' (75). According to this reading, then, when we watch nature getting its revenge, we as viewers are able to purge our guilt about its degradation. However, as Yacowar notes, the moral attitude of the typical disaster movie is ambiguous. Poetic justice in disaster films,' he writes, ‘derives from the assumption that there is some relationship between a person's due and his or her doom'. However, this notion breaks down when the ‘good die with the evil' (Yacowar 232). The Day After Tomorrow works according to these generic expectations, with Nature at times appearing amoral in its destructiveness, and at other times, a force of moral retribution and punishment. The arrogant businessmen who bribe the bus driver, and the corruptible bus driver himself, get their comeuppance when they drown in the tidal wave that engulfs Manhattan.Jeffrey Nachmanoff reveals in the DVD commentary that, in an early draft of the script, the businessman had been negotiating an insider deal with the Japanese businessman killed by the hailstorm in Tokyo (Emmerich). In the final version, the latter lies to his wife on his cell phone moments before his death. The ethical critique in these scenes fits into the ideological agenda of many disaster films. As King writes, such films ‘include an element of criticism of capitalism, but this is a gesture that for the most part leaves its core values largely intact.A few ‘excesses' are singled out, such as the greedy cost-cutting that undermines the integrity of the eponymous star of The Towering Inferno, leaving the remainder mostly untouched' (King 153). In The Day After Tomorrow, then, greedy, self-interested individuals are punished. Yet innocent people also die in the movie, including the climate scientists who freeze to death in Scotland, led by the avuncular Terry Rapson (Ian Holm), and Jack's friend Frank (Jay O. Sanders), who falls to his death through the roof of a building, after cutting his own rope to prevent his friends from endangering their lives in trying to rescue him.These are figures of heroic sacrifice, also central to the disaster genre, because they bring out the redemptive aspects of the apocalypse. The film does not stat e clearly where the British royal family stand in this hierarchy of innocence and guilt: what is clear, is that death by climate change is no respecter of class privilege and wealth. The disaster movie, then, is about which values are the key to survival. The rescue of the innocent, French-speaking African family is thus crucial in einforcing the movie's ethical hierarchy based on racial, national and gender differences: they are saved by the white American woman (Laura), who in turn is saved by the white American male (Sam), thereby enacting in miniature two important themes in the movie. The most important of these is the narrative of male heroism and redemption. Melodrama, writes Linda Williams, is about a ‘retrieval and staging of innocence' (Williams 7). In this film, the melodramatic plot of father rescuing son makes the moral point that hard-working fathers need to take a more active role in bringing up their sons.The movie implies that, although millions of people may be dead, if one American family can be saved, then at least some good has come out of the eco-apocalypse. This message is more liberal, or at least not as unambiguously patriarchal, as in earlier disaster movies. In keeping with Stephen Prince's notion of ideological agglomeration, mentioned earlier, although Jack's wife is a doctor, she ends up playing the role of surrogate mother to a seven-year old boy with cancer, separated from his parents by the storm.The movie can thus be interpreted as either liberal (she is a doctor) or conservative (she is placed in the stereotypical female role of nurturer). The second important theme in the movie is the United States' self-appointed role as global protector-policeman. The rescue narrative trumpets the frontier values of male physical heroism, strong leadership and individualism, encapsulated by the iconic image of the torch of the Statue of Liberty emerging from the waves of the tsunami that engulfs Manhattan.However, America's role in w orld politics is also questioned by a more liberal discourse in the movie, when American refugees are forced to flee illegally into Mexico, in an ironic reversal of the real politics on the national border. This ironic reversal is itself made ambiguous, though, when later the United States government writes off all Third World debt, but in return, wins the right for its citizens to live as ‘guests' in those countries. It should be noted that not all Hollywood movies with environmental themes are as individualistic in their proposed solutions as The Day After Tomorrow.Some have endorsed more collective forms of action, even in narratives led by strong individuals: an image of placard-waving protestors recurs in Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995) and Fly Away Home (1996) as a sign of collective resistance. Ultimately, The Day After Tomorrow prefers American notions of liberal individualism, which it turns into universal values by identifying them with human civilization as a whole. Indeed, civilization, rather than wild nature, becomes the real object of audience identification by the end.The choice of the New York Public Library as the place of sanctuary and rescue is significant in this respect. One of the survivors makes sure he preserves the Gutenberg Bible from burning, not because he believes in God, he says, but because, as the first book ever printed, it represents ‘the dawn of the age of reason'. ‘If Western civilization is finished', he adds, ‘I'm going to save at least one little piece of it'. Ultimately, then, the movie celebrates reason and science as the values most central to Western civilization. Unusually for a Hollywood disaster movie, scientists are neither evil nor incompetent.As Yacowar notes, specialists in disaster movies, including scientists, ‘are almost never able to control the forces loose against them'. The genre thus serves ‘the mystery that dwarfs science' (Yacowar 228). This is also true of The Day After Tomorrow, in that the scientists are unable to contain the devastating effects of climate change once they have begun. ‘Ultimately,' writes ecocritic Sylvia Mayer, ‘the movie makes the point that the most advanced and dedicated scientific work is still powerless against the forces of nature once they are unleashed' (Mayer 111).Nevertheless, the scientists are the heroes of the movie. Their advice on the risks of climate change was ignored by the politicians until it was too late. As the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration angrily tells the Vice-President: ‘You didn't want to heat about the science when it would have made a difference'. The scientists' computer models prove correct: in the movie, unlike in real life, climate science provides the clear, certain and unambiguous knowledge necessary for survival.Moreover, advanced technology is ultimately a force for good. Jack is able to locate his son in the Public Library un der the frozen wastes of Manhattan because of his friend's portable satellite navigation system (which, of course, would not work in such a massive storm). He is also seen driving a hybrid Toyota Prius earlier in the film. Reason, science and technology thus win the day. However, as Sylvia Mayer also notes, the movie stops short of simplistically advocating a technological fix for environmental problems as complex as climate change (Mayer 117).The values of civilization finally triumph over the destructive forces of wild nature when the pack of wolves, which escaped from Central Park Zoo earlier in the movie, return to attack Sam and his friends when they are searching for medicine and food. That the wolves are computer-generated special effects only adds an extra layer of irony to the triumph of civilization and benign technology in the movie. Indeed, the movie itself can be seen as a paean to the imaginative power of Computer Generated Imaging.In Eco Media (2005), Sean Cubitt argu es that The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2002-3) can be read as a celebration of the computer technologies from which it was made, which are an artisanal mode of production that demonstrates a creative place for technology within ‘green' thinking. There is an ‘increasing belief', he suggests, ‘that through the development of highly technologised creative industries, it is possible to devise a mode of economic development that does not compromise the land' (Cubitt 10). The thematic resolution of The Day After Tomorrow is ambiguous, however.The ending of the movie follows the recurrent pattern of the genre identified by Geoff King, in which ‘the possibility of apocalyptic destruction is confronted and depicted with a potentially horrifying special effects/spectacular ‘reality', only to be withdrawn or limited in its extent' (King 145). Typically, then, destruction is extensive, but total apocalypse is prevented at the last moment. The superstorm passes, the reby confirming Jack's earlier opinion that the storms will last ‘until the imbalance that created them is corrected' by ‘a global realignment'.Gazing at a beautiful, calm Earth, an astronaut in the International Space Station comments that he has ‘never seen the air so clear'. In Winston Wheeler Dixon's phrase, this could be the ‘exit point for the viewer' that disaster movies invariably provide (Dixon 133); the moment where the audience is let off the hook with a simplistic, evasive solution to the seemingly intractable problem explored in the rest of the movie. To return to the question posed at the start of this essay, does such an ending merely encourage evasion, denial and complacency in regard to issues such as anthropogenic climate change?Dixon argues that contemporary American cinema serves those who ‘wish to toy with the themes of destruction', from movies about atomic apocalypse to those that flirt with Nazism. This cinematic ‘cult of d eath', he concludes, is ‘the ultimate recreation' for an exhausted, media-saturated culture, a cult which ‘remains remote, carefully contained within a box of homicidal and genocidal dreams' (Dixon 139). But the ideological ambiguity of The Day After Tomorrow, as well as its audience reception, suggests that the process of interpretation is more open and varied than this.From an environmentalist perspective, the melodramatic ending of the film is ambiguous. No matter what human beings do, it appears, the Earth will heal itself. According to this reading, the message of the movie is that, because the storm eventually passes, we don't need to worry. This message resembles the right-wing appropriation of the Gaia hypothesis; that is, the idea, proposed by the British chemist James Lovelock, that the Earth as a whole is a self-regulating system in a natural state of homeostatic balance.In his 1999 book Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists, Peter Hube r used the concept of Gaia to justify a conservative manifesto that called for the dismantling of existing environmental regulations. The ‘most efficient way to control' pollutants such as greenhouses gases, he argued, ‘is not to worry about them at all. Let them be. Leave them to Gaia' (Huber 128). The notion of Gaia, we should note, is not the sole property of New Age environmentalists or deep ecologists.According to this interpretation, the movie appears to endorse the idea that humanity, through a combination of ingenuity, courage and chance, can survive whatever Nature may throw at us, an argument used by conservatives like Huber to justify a non-interventionist approach to environmental issues. It is a mistake, however, to assume that the final moments of a movie, when narrative closure is achieved, dictate its overall meaning. An analogy may be drawn here with the critical analysis of the role of women in film noir.As Janey Place argues of the female characters in films such as Double Indemnity (1946), ‘it is not their inevitable demise we remember but rather their strong, dangerous, and above all, exciting sexuality' (Place 48). In a similar way, the most memorable images in The Day After Tomorrow are probably the scenes of extreme weather. The main advertising image for the movie showed the shot of the hand of the Statue of Liberty held above the storm surge: an image of survival which at least includes a sense of struggle, rather than the calm, reposeful Earth revealed at the close of the film.Indeed, the above interpretation of the film as conservative is contradicted by its more explicit message, which advocated liberal political reform in the election year of 2004. Early in the film, Vice-President Becker, played by an actor who bears an obvious resemblance to Dick Cheney, refuses to listen to the advice of scientists on global warming, arguing that to take action would harm the American economy. In another reference to George W. Bush's presidency, we are told that the administration in the movie has also refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.At the end of the movie, Becker, now President, appears on television to apologise to the nation out of a newfound sense of humility: ‘For years we operated under the belief that we could continue consuming our planet's natural resources without consequence. We were wrong. I was wrong'. Perhaps the most unbelievable part of the whole movie, the President's public apology confirms the words of the African-American homeless man earlier in the film, who refers to people with their ‘cars and their exhausts, and they're just polluting the atmosphere'.The disaster has been a wake-up call for America, and the new start will allow for the changes in lifestyle necessary for a more sustainable future. The government will also change its attitude to the Third World from one of arrogance to gratitude. In these moments, th e movie works as a secular form of jeremiad; ‘secular' because the environmental catastrophe is not seen as punishment from God, but as human-created. Opie and Elliott argue that both ‘implementational and evocative strategies' are necessary in successful jeremiads, and cite Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) as a powerful exemplar (Opie and Elliott 35).The Day After Tomorrow also uses both pathos and rational argument to convince its audience of the need to take steps to avoid environmental catastrophe. Critical speculation on the effectiveness or otherwise of making a disaster movie about global warming can draw on the conclusions of an empirical study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research of the reception of the movie in Germany. This found that the movie did not appear to reinforce feelings of fatalism in its audience. Less than 10% of the sample agreed with the statement, ‘There's nothing we can do anyway', whereas 82% preferred, ‘We hav e to stop climate change'. Reusswig). Indeed, the Potsdam study makes hopeful reading for environmentalists. It found that the publicity surrounding the film triggered a new interest in climate change, and raised some issues previously unfamiliar to audiences, such as the role of oceans in global warming. A similar study of reception in the United States concluded that the film ‘led moviegoers to have higher levels of concern and worry about global warming, to estimate various impacts on the United States as more likely, and to shift their conceptual understanding of the climate system toward a threshold model.Further, the movie encouraged watchers to engage in personal, political, and social action to address climate change and to elevate global warming as a national priority'. However, whether such changes constituted merely a ‘momentary blip' in public perceptions remained to be seen (Leiserowitz 7). These empirical studies are important because they show that audienc e reception is a more complex and variable process than it is sometimes taken for in film theory. According to some versions of psychoanalytic ‘subject positioning' theory, Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow tend to render spectators passive.Under the influence of Bertolt Brecht's theories of narrative, film academics such Colin McCabe and Steven Heath argued that only modernist or avant-garde narrative techniques can produce a more active (even revolutionary) film spectator. As the 1992 textbook New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics puts it, psychoanalytic film theory ‘sees the viewer not as a person, a flesh-and-blood individual, but as an artificial construct, produced and activated by the cinematic apparatus' (Stam 147). In his book The Crisis of Political Modernism (1999), D.N. Rodowick exposes the flaws in such thinking. The politics of political modernism, he writes, assume ‘an intrinsic and intractable relation between texts and their spectators, reg ardless of the historical or social context of that relation' (Rodowick 34). But film viewers are flesh-and-blood individuals, and when they are treated as such by film theorists and researchers, the phenomenon of film reception becomes more complex and nuanced, and less deterministic and stereotyped, than that imagined by subject positioning theory.Empirical audience research shows that we do not all watch the same movie in the same way, and that audience responses are complexly determined by a long list of variables, such as nation, region, locality, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and, last but certainly not least, individual temperament. When we look at the public reception of The Day After Tomorrow, then, it is clear that different interest groups appropriated the movie in different ways.Both sides of the public debate about climate change interpreted the movie within a realist framework, either positively or negatively, and produced selective readings in order to fur ther their own agendas. Patrick Michaels, one of the minority of scientists who stills rejects the idea of human-created climate change, pointed out the scientific flaws in the movie, and damned Hollywood for irresponsibly playing into the hands of liberal environmentalists by exaggerating the threat of global warming (Michaels 1).Liberal-left environmental campaigners also understood that the movie's foundation in science was flawed. However, they found its scientific exaggerations and inaccuracies less important than what they saw as its realistic portrayal of the American government's denial of the scientific evidence for global warming. As former Vice-President Al Gore put it, ‘there are two sets of fiction to deal with. One is the movie, the other is the Bush administration's presentation of global warming' (Mooney 1). Gore joined with the liberal Internet advocacy organization MoveOn. rg, which used the movie's release as an opportunity to organize a national advocacy ca mpaign on climate change. Senators McCain and Lieberman also used the movie to promote the reintroduction of their Climate Stewardship Act in Congress (Nisbet 1). Greenpeace endorsed the ‘underlying premise' of the film, that ‘extreme weather events are already on the rise, and global warming can be expected to make them more frequent and more severe'. It summed up its response to the movie with the line: ‘Fear is justified' (Greenpeace 1-2).The use of this movie to encourage environmental debate suggests that it is perhaps only if Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow are people's sole, or even main, source of information on the environment that we should worry. As Sylvia Mayer argues, Hollywood environmentalist movies ‘have the potential to contribute to the development of an ‘environmentally informed sense of self' that is characterised by an awareness of environmental threats, by the wish to gain more effective knowledge about them and by a d isposition to participate actively in efforts to remedy the problem' (Mayer 107).In this respect, a classical, Hollywood-style narrative does not necessarily inculcate or reinforce a feeling a complacency or denial it its audience. In any case, no narrative can be as complex as the reality to which it refers; all art is a process of simplifying, selecting and giving shape to reality. Classical narrative forms and genre movies such as The Day After Tomorrow can focus thought and provide an imaginative and provocative response to environmental crisis. WORKS CITED Adam, Barbara (1998), Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards, Routledge, London and New York.Bell, Art and Streiber, Whitely (1999), The Coming Global Superstorm, Pocket Star Books, New York. Collins, Jim (1989), Uncommon Cultures: Popular Culture and Post-Modernism, Routledge, New York and London. Cubitt, Sean (2005), Eco Media, Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York. Davis, Mike (1998), Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, Henry Holt and Co. , New York. Dixon, Wheeler Winston (2003), Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema, Wallflower Press, London and New York.Emmerich, Roland, director (2004), The Day After Tomorrow, 20th Century Fox, Two-disc DVD. Figlio, Karl (1996). ‘Knowing, loving and hating nature: a psychoanalytic view' in George Robertson, Melinda Mash, Lisa Tickner, Jon Bird, Barry Curtis and Tim Putnam (eds), FutureNatural: Nature, science, culture, Routledge, London and New York. Greenpeace International (2004). ‘Big screen vs big oil'. http://www. greenpeace. org/international/news/the-day-after-tomorrow, 1-4. Hawken, Paul (1993), The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, HarperCollins, New York.Henson, Robert (2006), The Rough Guide to Climate Change, Rough Guides, London. Huber, Peter (1999), Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists: A Conservative Manifesto, Basic Books, New York. Keane, Stephen (2001), Disaster Movies, Wallflower Press, London. Kerridge, Richard (1998), ‘Introduction', in Richard Kerridge and Neil Sammels (eds), Writing the Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature. Zed Books, London and New York. King, Geoff (2000), Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Blockbuster, London and New York, I. B. Tauris.Lieserowitz, Anthony A (2004), ‘Before and After The Day After Tomorrow: A U. S. study of climate change risk perception. ‘ Environment. 46 (9), 22-37. www. findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m1076/is_9_46/ai_n856541/print, 1-12. Mayer, Sylvia (2006), ‘Teaching Hollywood Environmentalist Movies: The Example of The Day After Tomorrow', in Sylvia Mayer and Graham Wilson (eds), Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Trier, WVT. Mellencamp, Patricia (1990), ‘TV Time and Catastrophe, or Beyond the Pleasure Principle of Television', in Logics of Television, ed.P atricia Mellencamp, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Michaels, Patrick J. (2004), ‘Apocalypse Soon? No, but This Movie (And Democrats) Hope You'll Think So. ‘ The Washington Post, May 16th 2004, B01. www. washingtonpost. com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28338-2004May14? language=printer Mooney, Chris (2004), ‘Learning From Nonsense? ‘, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, http://www. csicop. org/doubtandabout/global-warming Nachmanoff, Jeffrey (2004), ‘Jeffrey Nachmanoff on The Day After Tomorrow'. http:// www. amazon. co. uk/gp/feature. html.Nisbet, Matthew (2004), ‘Evaluating the Impact of The Day After Tomorrow: Can a Blockbuster Film Shape the Public's Understanding of a Science Controversy? ‘, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, http://www. csicop. org/ Opie, John and Elliott, Norbert (1996), ‘Tracking the Elusive Jeremiad: The Rhetorical Character of American Environmental Discourse', in James G. Cantrill and Christine L. Oravec (eds), The Symboli c Earth: Discourse and Our Creation of the Environment, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington. Place, Janey (1978), ‘Women in Film Noir', in E. Ann Kaplan (ed), Women in Film Noir.BFI, London. Prince, Stephen (1992), Visions of Empire: Political Imagery in Contemporary American Film. Praeger, New York. Reusswig, Fritz, Scwarzkopf, Julia and Pohlenz, Philipp (2004), ‘Double Impact: The Climate Blockbuster ‘The Day After Tomorrow' and its impact on the German Cinema Public. ‘ PIK Report 92, Potsdam, 1-61. http://www. pik-potsdam. de/research/publications/pikereports/summary-report-n-92 Rodowick, D. N. (1999), The Crisis of Political Modernism: Criticism and Ideology in Contemporary Film Theory, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago.Sontag, Susan (2001), Against Interpretation, Vintage, London. Stam, Robert, Burgoyne, Robert and Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy (1992), New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics: Structuralism, post-structuralism and beyond, Routledg e, London and New York. Williams, Linda (1998), ‘Melodrama Revisited', in Nick Browne (ed), Refiguring American Film Genres, University of California Press, London. Yacowar, Maurice (1986), ‘The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre', in Barry Keith Grant (ed), Film Genre Reader, University of Texas Press, Austin.

10 Types of Companies You Should Never Work For

10 Types of Companies You Should Never Work For In your job search, you will come across a wide variety of companies. Some will be better to work for than others. Some will suit your working style best. And some are best avoided entirely. Keep an eye out for companies to steer clear of completely, and learn to recognize them early- and save yourself some suffering and stress!1. The Revolving DoorKeep an eye out for companies with really high turnover, ones stuck in a hire-and-fire cycle and hunting for the same new roles every six months or a year. This is either the fault of a bad internal culture or fickle management. It’s bad news either way.2. The Group InterviewersSome companies like to save time by interviewing candidates in batches. If they can’t take the time to interview candidates one-on-one, they might not be for you.3. The Bad Culture/ReputationIf a company has consistently bad employee reviews, that’s a bad sign. Worse if the recruiter evades questions about employee satisfaction and culture. And if its reputation is bad? Well, it probably deserves it.4. The Glossy FakerThe website, materials, even the boss’s office are pristine. But the building itself, and every other office in it (mostly dark and dilapidated cubicles) seems overlooked and cluttered. This is a great sign of how this company treats their workers: badly.5. The Ghost CompanyThis company doesn’t give you anything to go on- no information about the job you are applying for, no organizational chart, no mission statement, no specified salary, and no other guidelines of any kind. This hint at  a huge lack of organization, and does not bode well.6. The Non-TrainersIt’s one thing for a company not to offer formal training and to expect you to get up to speed through informal training. But a company that won’t help get you up to speed at all? Not investing in you, and not worth investing in!7. The Foot-DraggersYou expect have to wait to hear back. But if you’ve been in touch to re affirm your interest or with questions, or if you’ve gotten another offer and the company refuses to accelerate the process or give you an answer, run away.8. The Top DownStay away from companies where there are a ton of executives and managers making all of the decisions and doing all the brainstorming, but the rank and file employees are more or less overlooked.9. The Stagnant PondIf there are no learning opportunities advertised and the hiring manager evaded your questions about your career goals in the future, stay away. You want a company that will help you develop and advance in your goals- not a dead end job, no matter how much you like it now.10. The TitanicThis kind of company seems to have it all- except direction. If they cannot articulate long-term goals or future plans, then senior leadership isn’t disseminating what it needs to. That’s never a good sign.